KATHMANDU, AUGUST 9
The National Information Commission has urged all the political parties to fully respect the right to information of citizens in line with the existing law.
Issuing an order in the name of political parties registered with the Election Commission, the NIC told them to follow the letter and spirit of the Right to Information Act, 2007.
"Most of the political parties registered under the law are apathetic towards respecting the right to information of the citizens. A visit to their websites shows how serious they are about implementation of the law," the NIC said. "Implementation of the RTI Act by political parties, whose government enacted that law, will help to create moral pressure on public bodies to follow suit and act responsibly. Therefore, political parties are expected to play a leading role in empowering citizens and making people aware of their activities by disseminating information of public concern," it added. Section 2 of the RTI Act has defined political parties and organisations as public bodies. Section 3 of the act says every Nepali citizen shall have the right to information and shall have access to information held by public bodies.
Similarly, the law requires public bodies to appoint an information officer for the purpose of disseminating information and making pro-active disclosure of information on a quarterly basis.
Likewise, the public bodies should post details of the information officer on their websites to ensure that the public can easily approach them. However, most of the political parties have not implemented this provision.
Against this backdrop, the NIC has directed political parties to provide necessary details, including the name of their information officer, designation, contact number, room number at office and email address, on websites.
A version of this article appears in the print on August 10, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
